Chapter 20
“So where’s Frank today?” Meghan poured herself some tea and reached for one of the date squares Cassie brought.
“He’s meeting his partner at their new space to see how the refit is coming along. How was your summer?”
“Too much travel. Fortunately Cassandra is a good traveller. Unfortunately, Gene isn’t. It was our turn to go to Russia to visit the relatives. I don’t expect that we’ll have to go many more times. Gene’s mother is eighty and she’s not in great health.”
“That might mean a trip every year until she passes away.”
Meghan gave a reluctant nod. “Probably. Gene’s sisters prefer to visit us. They can practice their English and the shopping is much better here, they say, than in Petrograd. Gene still hasn’t found anything that will let him stay awake and reduce motion sickness. So he’s either asleep or miserable on the plane. And trains are worse for him, even in first class. How was your summer?”
Cassie pursed her lips as she decided how to reply. “Frank’s family are a very odd group of people, but everyone except his father decided I was okay. My oldest niece is only two years younger than me, though. She’s really nice but it’s kind of awkward being Aunt Cassie. After we packed up Frank’s apartment we went to Norway, which is a really awesome place. And I got my full driver’s license yesterday morning, so Frank bought me a nice used car to get to school.”
She paused to take a drink. “We’ve spent the last few days shopping for furniture. Fortunately for us the seller agreed to let us close a week early. We’ve got the living room, family room, two bedrooms and part of the kitchen set up. After we finish the kitchen we’ll start on the dining room and formal parlour, both of which need to be completely refinished, then we’ll get the rest of the bedrooms done. You’ll have to come out for a tour soon. I owe you and Gene at least one supper.”
“I’d prefer to come over for lunch.” Then Meghan shook her head to clear it. “I keep forgetting. You’re heading back to high school soon. It will have to be weekends or teacher conference days. Or one of those evenings when Gene’s muse takes over, if you can stand a short notice visit.”
“Short notice works for me. Frank will just have to put up with it.” Cassie sighed. “I had a really weird interview two days ago with the vice-principal at one of the high schools in our catchment zone. All of his forms need a parent or guardian to sign, which doesn’t apply to me, and he was really flustered and not very nice about it. He recommended that I register at the Adult High School because they’re set up for married students but that’s a long drive into Ottawa. Frank suggested I look into a couple of the private high schools, too.”
“Will you?”
“It depends on what the Adult High School is like and if I’m comfortable in the neighbourhood. I’m headed there after lunch.” She shook her head. “If I was still living the way I was at Mum’s it wouldn’t matter because it wouldn’t look like I had anything worth stealing. But I’ll have to drive and I think my Mini Cooper might stand out.”
“Well, good luck finding a school.” Meghan leaned forward and asked, “And on the personal level? Is Frank still content to wait?”
Cassie blushed and said, “We’re both frustrated but so far he’s been patient. We actually sleep in the same bed because I don’t get nightmares when we sleep together. But some of the ways he touches me trigger big panic attacks, especially if his hands get close to my neck or my bottom.”
Meghan looked serious and sympathetic. “That’s a pain. Done right, physical intimacy is a great way to bond with each other.”
“My head knows all of that but I guess my body doesn’t really trust him yet. I’ve asked for an appointment with our pastor to talk about counselling services but that’s not for another week or so.”
“As long as you remember that you’ve also got some friends you can talk to.”
“Thanks, friend.” Then she sighed. “At least I don’t panic much when we’re in public together. All of the really awful stuff with Gord happened when we were alone in the apartment after Mum was comatose, so I don’t associate bad things with being in public. It’s easy to be with Frank when we’re at a public event like one of my mother-in-law’s charity dances.”
“Speaking of public events, has Anne roped you into anything yet?”
“No, not yet.”
Meghan got a smug look on her face. “Good. Then I can be first. There’s a charity fundraiser at the National Gallery that includes a private viewing of the Van Gogh exhibit the Thursday before Labour Day.” Meghan winced. “Ouch. That’s in three days. Where did the summer go? Anyway, I have an extra pair of tickets and I think that you and Frank should come. It would be a very good networking opportunity for both of you.”
“And you want to make sure that there’s a friendly face at my first public showing in Ottawa?”
Meghan gave Cassie an arch look. “Well, it is an art gallery and I’m certain that you’ll be a very attractive work of art yourself, especially if I can take you shopping for a new dress.”
Cassie stuck her tongue out at Meghan. Then she grinned in return. “And I’ll have a pretty decent work of art escorting me, too. All that swimming, you know, and a properly fitted tux.”
Meghan adopted a false primness and sniffed, “Married women don’t notice that sort of thing, Mrs. Ellis.”
“And what rule book is that in, Mrs. Sokolov?”
They both fell into a giggle fit which roused Cassandra from her nap.
———
“Frank, this is Sergeant Bastarache of the RCMP commercial crime unit.” The forensic technical manager, Joanne Corvino, motioned to a tall dapper man with a moustache.
“Pleased to meet you, Sergeant Bastarache.”
“Call me Alain, please.”
“A vos préférence, Alain.” Frank nodded in his direction.
“I’m actually more comfortable in English but it’s good to know that you speak French.”
Frank looked at Joanne and asked, “So what have you found out so far?”
Joanne looked at Alain and frowned. “Some of this evidence based and some of it is hearsay and some is mere speculation on my part but we found enough indicators to make an educated guess about the scope of the embezzlement scheme. It looks like they’re diverting about a million a month, minimum, and maybe as much as two and a half million. About a quarter ends up in the hands of the CFO at head office, we think.” She motioned everyone to take a seat at the table in the small board room then closed the door behind them.
Alain nodded. “That’s certainly big enough for us to be interested.”
When everyone was seated, she consulted her notepad and started, “From the information we have, including some reports from Henry’s new internal audit unit, there are strong indications that the scheme is operating in three of the thirteen Menzies subsidiaries and that it isn’t operating in nine of the remaining ten. Frank, I’ll need you to confirm that we will be sequestering documents at either three or four of the suspect subsidiaries. Alawen is one of them, by the way. The other probables are in Hamilton and Winnipeg and the maybe one is in Sorel. With head office that would be four or five teams.”
“I’ll confirm it, but plan for five teams. When would you want to go in?”
“We’re looking at the end of September, maybe as late as mid-October, depending on when we have people available. Do you know if there is a centrally imposed chart of accounts and data scheme?”
Frank thought for a second. “If I remember correctly we all used the same accounting software and an enterprise wide standard chart of accounts down to what we called level four. But we could break a level four account into level five and six sub-accounts if the local managers wanted more granular information on a project. There was also a project code field that was available. It was mandatory at Alawen but I’m not certain about the other subs.”
Joanne nodded. “That works for us, then. We have electronic copies of the Alawen general and pay
ables ledgers for the last four years that your colleague from Halifax thought to extract and send with the invoices you spotted.” She smiled. “It made our work much easier.”
Frank shrugged. “I should have thought of that. But then, Marie-Ève worked in the forensic unit at Raymond Chabot for a while. I’m not surprised she remembered to get that for you.”
“There’s also a nice index that she prepared. I’ll have to thank her when this is over.”
Frank said, “We had dinner with her and her family when Cassie and I got back from our honeymoon. She found a few more invoices for assets and services with delivery addresses that are questionable. She’ll be happy to show them to your team when you arrive.”
“Anything juicy?”
Frank grinned. “The former CFO was moved at company expense to his new home in the Caribbean and was given a high end satellite communications and television receiver rig, in case we needed to contact him, along with a nice fat monthly retainer so he’d be available to provide advice. And they paid for his satellite service for a year, too, and his wife is still on the payroll. Plus, Phil, the acting CFO, had a high end home theatre system delivered to his house at company expense the week he was appointed.”
Alain commented, “Maybe I’ll have to confirm the existence of those Caribbean assets myself. Probably in January.” He winked at Joanne. “Shall I ask you to accompany me?”
“I won’t say anything until I clear it with my husband.” Joanne gave him a hairy eyeball and continued, “But I don’t know that Frank would be happy to reimburse us for that trip.”
Frank shrugged. “It’s about the same total price no matter what time of year you go. There are more and cheaper flights in the winter but the hotels cost more. We wouldn’t pay for five star hotels, but if you need to go, we’ll find you the money.”
Joanne said, “Enough teasing, Alain. I’d like to walk you through what we’ve found to date and get your thoughts on what we need to be careful of.”
“Actually, from what I’ve heard so far the only thing I have to warn you is that it’s already close to the line for a criminal investigation, even if we haven’t officially accepted the case. You don’t want to taint the case by violating anyone’s Charter rights.”
Joanne shrugged. “I’d already been warned about that by Trevor and by our own legal staff but it’s good to remember. We’re used to dealing with it.”
Frank asked, “Is there enough evidence to fire the main actors for cause?”
Joanne looked at her notes again. “For three of the four suspects still employed by Alawen, yes. The asset diversion by J. David, Reg and Jacquie is too blatant to ignore or excuse. Reg’s wife was still on payroll as of the date of the extracts. I’ll recommend that Henry puts Phil on suspension with pay until we can find something solid enough to fire him. We suspect that he was benefiting from overlooking anomalies in the payables but Henry would need Marie-Ève’s recent evidence to fire him. Of course, Henry can fire the ghosts immediately. Now, I’d like to go over the tentative plan and talk about where we need to shore it up. Unfortunately we only have suspicions about Tony. It’s not easy to follow the money without a subpoena which we can’t get until we have some solid evidence to show a judge. And sometimes you can’t get that evidence without the subpoena.”
Alain gave Joanne a look of sympathy. “Stuff happens. We just push through and hope that we luck into enough evidence for the judge to issue us a warrant.”
As they were finishing up, Frank asked to speak with Alain on another matter. Curious, Alain followed Frank to the small meeting room he was using as a temporary office.
“So what did you want to talk about?”
“You’ll probably hear some rumours about my wife if you come by often. We got married very quickly this summer.” He pointed at the photos on his credenza. “That’s her.”
“She’s very pretty.” Alain raised an eyebrow. “Does she have a criminal record?”
Frank snorted. “Not at all. But her mother is an oxy addict and a former and maybe current prostitute and her mother’s new husband runs drugs for one of the gangs in town to get booze and poker money. The thing is that Cassie’s only seventeen and looked younger when I rescued her. She was being abused and forcibly confined by her stepfather in expectation of selling her to someone overseas who wanted a blonde virgin, we think. Cassie overheard one of them say that Gord’s cut was going to be substantial.”
Alain leaned forward in his chair. “Ouch.” He thought for a second. “Can she identify anyone?”
“She hasn’t told me one way or the other. I expect that she can identify the men who ‘inspected the merchandise’, as it were.” Frank clasped his fingers together. “I’m guessing, but I think they were waiting for her bruises to fade before they told her about her ‘scholarship’ to a private school overseas. She was pretty badly beaten when she refused to submit quietly to the examination and they may have tried to force her to do other things. She still had some bruises when we married.”
Alain’s face became sombre. “Human trafficking, hmm.” He blew out a sigh. “It might be the break that the the city police are looking for. Can you convince her to talk to them? At least about the assault and the forcible confinement?”
“She’s scared there might be some retaliation. If not against her then against her mother.”
“Well, I suppose it’s her decision.”
“I don’t think she wants her mother involved at all. If she reports Gord then her mother will be left without anyone to support her, except us. And I don’t think we want to do anything for Penny unless she is willing to get and stay clean.”
Alain gave a bitter laugh. “Good luck with that. If she’s on oxys then it will be a long hard road to recovery, if she can stay alive long enough to get clean. I just hope she doesn’t graduate to fentanyl. It’s too easy to OD on that.”
Frank nodded. “We know. I pray for her every day but we haven’t spoken to her since she came to the City Hall the day we got married to get the permission letter notarized.”
“Well, I hope you can convince your wife to cooperate. I’ll pass on the word that there may be a procurer at work in town. Maybe they’ll be able to make some connections among some of the unresolved missing persons reports. And maybe you could ask her if she can remember details about the men. It would help if we knew which gang they were affiliated with.”
Alain took his leave and Frank called Trevor to give him the update. Ten minutes after he finished the call, Trevor phoned back with the decision to include the Sorel office in the investigation.